An Inuit fisherman and his family have a seal meat barbeque - Source: The Guardian

On Facebook I follow a group called The Alaska Life. Some gorgeous photography on there. It makes me want to move to Alaska. Anyway, back in May I reached out to them for some information on images of the whale hunts they were posting as I wanted to write about it. The indigenous people are allowed to take so many a year. I’d daydream about the whole process. How they hunt the whale, how they kill it, how they distribute the meat, how it tastes, etc. Fascinating as can be to me.

Unfortunately, no one returned my e-mails. I just wanted info, not an invitation to join the kill – though I’d max out my credit cards in a second to get up there given the opportunity. A few months later, someone explained to me that that culture is very private about such things. Sounded like a good enough reason to me so I’ve mostly dropped the idea.

But I’ve since run across a couple of news items about indigenous hunts that got my goat.

The first was the story of a young man who killed a whale for his village. He was called out online by activist Paul Watson of Whale Wars fame. I’ll reserve my judgement of him for private conversation, but you can get the picture of what kind of human he is here:

Chris Apassingok, 16, hunted the 57-foot bowhead whale back in April near his remote Siberian Yupik village of Gambell on Alaska’s northwest edge.

The teenager was widely praised by fellow hunters and those in his remote village as they celebrated the killing as a sign of his passage into adulthood.

News of the killing quickly went viral worldwide when environmental activist Paul Watson – who is the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society – shared a local newspaper’s story about Chris’ hunt on Facebook.

His post, which has since been deleted, began: ‘WTF, You 16-Year Old Murdering Little B******! Some 16-year old kid is a frigging ‘hero’ for snuffing out the life of this unique self aware, intelligent, social, sentient being, but hey, it’s okay because murdering whales is a part of his culture, part of his tradition.

‘I don’t give a da** for the bulls**t politically correct attitude that certain groups of people have a “right” to murder a whale.’

His mother Susan Apassingok said her son hasn’t been the same since he was targeted. She said the whale Chris killed provided their entire village with food

Following Watson’s post, Chris was hit with a barrage of abusive messages and death threats from the activist’s followers.

Classy.

The second news item shrinks the game from whales to seal. I was largely unaware of the role animal rights activists have played in the poverty of these people.

The commercial seal hunt has been a contentious subject between animal rights activists and Indigenous groups for decades. In the 1970s, Ifaw began to mobilise public opinion against the annual hunt of baby harp seals (known as “whitecoats”) off Canada’s east coast. The organisations used photographs of helpless baby seals being clubbed to death by fishermen to create protest campaigns.

After immense public support, in 1983 the European Economic Community (ECC) banned the importing of seal skin and furs for two years. Public opinion against the seal hunt was so strong that demand for seal pelts and furs dropped dramatically all over the world.

As animal rights organisations celebrated the collapse of Canada’s east-coast whitecoat sealing industry, the Inuit in northern Canada – who do not hunt seal pups, only adult harp seals – suffered from the collapse of the market for seal pelts. Despite a written exemption for Indigenous Inuit hunters, markets across the Arctic (both large-scale commercial and sustainable-use) crashed.

In 1983-85, when the ban went into effect, the average income of an Inuit seal hunter in Resolute Bay fell from Can$54,000 to $1,000. The government of the Northwest Territories estimated that nearly 18 out of 20 Inuit villages lost almost 60% of their communities’ income.

And life in these areas has not got any better since. The region is plagued with the highest unemployment rate in Canada, and the highest suicide rates in the world. A second seal ban, enforced by the European Union in 2010, only exacerbated these issues.

Irena Knezevic, a professor at Carleton University in Ottawa specialising in communication around food and health, believes that historically, campaigns by organisations such as Peta and Ifaw have gravely impacted Inuit communities:

“I want to be really cautious by first saying this is not true of all vegan and environmental organisations,” she says. “But I do think organisations like Peta, Ifaw and Sea Shepherd have greatly profited from the shocking and spectacular images of seals being clubbed to death.

The article continues:

Angry Inuk, a documentary made by filmmaker Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, depicts the decades-old conflict between animal rights and environmental groups and the Inuit. Aaju Peter, an Inuit lawyer from Nunavut, is one of the activists featured in the documentary; she witnessed first-hand the devastation the seal bans caused her people.

“We are trying to feed our communities. When our hunters catch seal they share it – it is the most nutritious food our children and communities can eat. But because the hunter can no longer afford fuel and ammunition due to the collapse of the seal market, it’s really making it hard,” Peter says. “We are the most food insecure region in any developed country. Something needs to change.”

A report by the Conference Board of Canada found that Nunavut, a territory in northern Canada, was the country’s most food insecure region, with more than half of the Inuit population reporting moderate-to-severe food insecurity. According to the nonprofit organisation Feeding Nunavut, seven in every 10 preschoolers in the area live in food-insecure households, often going to sleep hungry and missing out on essential nutrition.

Although the Canadian government has tried to strengthen the sealing industry by giving tax subsidies to fishermen and enforcing strict quotas on the number of seals allowed to be harvested in a season, vegan and animal rights organisations are not backing down on their fight against the seal hunt.

Tanya Tagaq is an Inuit throat singer from northern Canada. In 2014, she received death threats from animal rights activists after she posted a picture of her infant daughter next to a dead seal for the Sealfie campaign. The same year, after she received the prestigious Polaris Music Prize, she shouted “**** Peta” during her acceptance speech in a show of support for the seal hunt. Peta responded with a statement saying she was ill-informed and should “read more”.

“I was born and raised [in Nunavut] and I know how the system works, how people harvest meat and how they process it,” Tagaq says. “The world is burning up for a reason, because people have totally forgotten how to respect the earth, the land, ourselves and each other. The idea some people can’t comprehend is that we [Inuit] might have the key to how to respect animals and how to respect the land. We’re all on the same side here.”

Tagaq says she feels compassion for animal rights activists, because most of them are not aware about the truth behind the seal hunt and other Indigenous practices. “They need to know we have the right to live off of our natural resources, without someone telling us what we are allowed to sell. Seals are our cows, they are our beef and leather, yet cattle markets haven’t crashed due to public opinion and animal rights opposition.”

She adds: “We have the right to hunt. We have the right to use renewable resources to feed our families. We have the right to survive.”

Amen.

Anyway, read the articles – especially the last one – when you get a moment. Check out the Alaska Life FB page. Find out how I can get in to report on one of these whale/seal hunts. Thank you.

About This Blog

Ian Nance is a lifelong resident of Central Florida with a passion for hunting and just about anything related. Associate Member of the Florida Outdoor Writers Association. Check back weekly for hunting stories, news, tips, and wild game recipes. Feel free to leave comments or e-mail topics you would like to see addressed here. Contact at inance880@aol.com or follow on Twitter @good_hunt